These are all made using 2B, 4B pencil in 8 1/2 X 11 75lb bright white paper in Allied Artists sketchbooks augmented in Photoshop, in the spirit of enthusiastic political engagement, participation, voting, and . . . democracy.

Coda.

The takeaway.

Benediction.

Debating the truly empty chair.

“We also believe in something called citizenship.”
——Barack Obama

“Never forget their sacrifice.”
—Vice President Joe Biden

“I’ve got news for Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan: Gentlemen, it never makes sense, it is never a good bet to bet against America.… And we have no intention of downsizing the American dream.”
—Vice President Joe Biden

“Folks, the Bain way may bring your firm the highest profits, but it is not the way to lead from the highest office.”
—Vice President Joe Biden

“God bless ’im”
—Jill Biden, on Joe

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer puts on the dog.

John Kerry

Charlie Crist, stranger in paradise.

“In Romney world the cars get the elevators and the workers get the shaft.”
—Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan

Representative Jared Polis: “My great grandparents were immigrants to this country. I’m Jewish, I’m gay, I’m a father, I’m a son, I’m an entrepreneur, and I’m a congressman from the great state of Colorado.”

Osama Hologram will be on call.

Tonight’s crowning moment so far: just run Mr. Multiple Choice’s greatest hits and Ted Kennedy commentary. Play this all fall.

Coda. For a man who almost nobody likes, whose dad may have unliked him tonight. From a letter by George Romney, words to contemplate.

The presidential and vice presidential nominees… and Romney and Ryan.

Romney Olympics 2012: Pentagon Cuts/Pentagon Spending Spree

Romney Olympics 2012: The Abortion Flip

Romney Olympics 2012: The Healthcare Flip

The Romney Olympics 2012

President Who.

Rubio’s speech gives Romney a new perspective on his VP pick.

Sarah Palin, Fox News: “If the Republican Party is racist, why have we elected so many minorities? Why did we elect Susana Martinez?… Why do we have so much respect for Herman Cain, and so many of these minorities?”

Happy to be here, and happy to contemplate 2016!

Marco Rubio claims his family escaped Castro in 1956. Castro must have looked like this.

So if this Clint Eastwood blends with Mitt Romney in viewer’s brains, is that the image Republicans want?

Ann Coulter, Fox News, on the Youth Vote: “Why are we all letting infants vote? Their brains aren’t fully formed!”

Tom Stemberg, founder of Staples, says Romney worked on saving Staples and its jobs—not Bain and its investors. That was easy!

The Oparowskis—who lost their son—Mitt was nice to them. The Humanize Romney Project.

Bobby Jindal, my favorite Republican (as a caricaturist), gets to be seen again as a man of action… and escapes this convention!

Condi Rice, accompanied tonight by an escort of 4,000 soldiers lost in Iraq.

GOP’s Favorite Dish

Chris Matthews, MSNBC: “All of this is disgraceful BS. They’re saying things to people to get them to stand up and applaud something that’s not going to happen. And if it does happen it’s a prescription for screwing people.”

Tonight all delegates get free Mike Huckabee coathangers.

Huck used to be so skinny. Must be all those Chick-Fil-As!

John Roberts, Fox News: “Romney has been attacking Obama on substance. Obama has been attacking Romney on personal.”

What pops into your mind when you see John McCain?

As a prank, the RNC puts up Bush video to scare the hell out of the delegates!

The Insulter In Chief

Wallace on FOX just now.

Ron Paul’s legacy. Another butt that burns for Ayn.

What does Rand Paul’s head look like to you?

Mitch McConnell — Where are the jobs?

Day Two! Here’s a deleted scene from the Ron Paul video. His 1964 civil rights position.

The American virtue of being an a**hole.

And away we go!

The delightful Ann Romney, here to humanize Mitt. How can she miss?

Nikki Haley. Anti-union, anti-black innuendo all in one speech!

Nikki Haley, former Sikh, now fiercely anti-immigrant. Also loves those Eggpersons.

Artur Davis loved Obama then tried to run for governor of Alabama and failed. Now he hates him. Are you following this?

The GOP convention may not be the best place for Ted Cruz to tell his family’s immigration story.

Rick Santorum goes over his To Do list.

One clock they forgot.

Scott Walker: saved in Wisconsin by Kochs, knows how good it is.

Bob McDonnell, Virginia governor, who loves the ultrasound machine. We thought he would like one too.

Ohio Governor John Kasich has the backing of the race-based anti-voting rights movement. And vice versa.

Police at the RNC are paid with $50 million voted by Congress. We (the public) built it.

Senator Kelly Ayotte (NH) used to be State Attorney General. She spent years prosecuting Planned Parenthood, but ignored a large mortgage corporation Ponzi scheme.

Media stay on message.

We (the public) built it.

Do you think Reince Priebus got the job because he looks like a fetus?

7 pm: Blockhead Boehner (for all you Gumby fans). His and Mitch McConnell’s Job #1 has been to block and destroy the Obama presidency. When he talks about pain in the United States, it never seemed that important before.

Tonight, the first actual night of the Republican Convention, we see the big stage set, which was designed with Romney’s input, replicating his idea of a warm and comfortable living room. It has thirteen TV screens. That sort of figures.

What’s most important here is the new post-–Citizens United politics in America. Post-partisan now mean Neo-Oligarchian.

And the funny part is all the howling we will hear about the Constitution. The right’s argument makes sense if you understand which “people” we are supposed to care about…

…and if you flip the word “We” just a bit.

So a big challenge for the GOP in Tampa who can best make “Me” sound most like “We”!

See you at 7.

Hurricane Isaac has postponed the first day of the GOP Convention. Perhaps a Trump outdoor event might still proceed. A fervent hope.

Ann Romney realized she wouldn’t make the networks if she spoke on Monday so she was switched to Tuesday night in the primetime hour. She also arranged with The Weather Channel to be inserted into hurricane coverage.

Bigger storms are brewing, however.

The platform suggests that the party is pretty unified on the idea that fertilized human eggs should be recognized as persons. As a result Tampa is now experiencing a massive pilgrimage of entitled Eggpersons demanding credentials.

This question is causing considerable delays as Eggpersons demand to be seated as delegates,

They immediately hold a caucus complete with an appearance by the candidate.

One of the first results: logo change.

And what about Paul Ryan?

I am reminded of a famous photo of GOP prankster Roger Stone, who had Nixon art tattooed on his back.

Some similar ink for Ryan involving Todd Akin would perhaps be enough to keep the GOP as happy as a blastocyst in glycoprotein.

I’ve covered many political conventions over the years. They are hard to forget, but sometimes I think it would be a good idea.

Today, conventions seem to be about very little. They mostly exist as a fancy feast for fat cats and the creatures of the media-industrial complex.

They hold the country’s attention for the better part of a week, but without really having anything new or very revealing to say!

So why is it a good idea for an artist to cover them? Because we do very well with BS. We know how to sift through it and find stuff you can use. In fact, we find it nourishing.

So for the next week we will focus on Tampa, which happens to be about eighty-four miles from Walt Disney World… and is, very possibly, now an even greater Fantasyland.

Like many protesters I will be confined to a specially designated area (in my case in an uncredentialed apartment house in New York). But with enough pizza and beer I expect to be able to see Tampa and Charlotte from my house.

For the conventions I will be posting regularly on my live blog on TheNation.com, Facebook, Twitter andTumblr, producing my dignified art. These characters, though, pretty much draw themselves.

What if we thought of the candidates as mash-ups of personalities and archetypes? So who would Paul Ryan, for example, be a mash-up of? Perhaps Howdy Doody meets Arnold Schwarzenegger?

And Mitt Romney? Maybe Gordon Gekko meets Mr. Bean.

So check out my flowing clustermashorama for the weeks of both conventions.The liveblog begins Monday, August 27. Grovel-to-grovel coverage. Going Koch to Koch. At my blog on TheNation.com.

Comments

Just seeing, in sum, the mere qualitative tip-of-the-iceberg of all the scores of drawings you managed to generate over your intensive six days covering the two nominating conventions—-well, the mind truly boggles.

Kudo’s for adding a whole other elevated level of incite, and humor to these political histrionics, taken far beyond the droning, hackneyed ‘talking-head-o-sphere’.

Some might argue that the days of these over-blown, lavishly expensive, nominating conventions have run their course.

Unlike the conclaves of the past, where we often didn’t have a for-sure candidate for president going into the nominating convention, and heated back-room, or out-on-the-arena-floor arm-twisting, and cajoling of state delegates was the norm; today the nation pretty much knows, going in, who the presidential/ VP ticket will be for each party. So in essence, these nominating conventions have become mere rubber-stamped media exercises in political puffery, to a great degree. (Entertaining, if nothing else.)

Sure, one could argue that these conventions, in some way, provide a golden opportunity to re-energize the ideological base of the respective front-running major political parties; as well as present their basic party platform, and to-do agenda going forward, to the broadest, tuned-in audience.

(Of course, it also allows each party to diss the opposition, exposing the alleged errors of their ways, and then persuade themselves, and the scores of undecided, or uncommitted voters out there that they hold the ‘right ‘, and most sound solutions to meet the challenges ahead.)

Still, Steve, as you’ve clearly demonstrated w/ such sustained creative flourish, vim, vigor, and sheer wit, even though today’s nominating conventions are essentially a done-deal going in (few surprises), there is still enough political intrigue, compelling, or quirky characters afoot, and ample hyperbolic political rhetoric bandied about on both sides of the ideological divide, that any cartoonist worth their salt has plenty of fertile fodder for contemplation, analysis, and the inevitable humoristic graphic skewering.

FYI . . .

Steve Brodner feels he is a newcomer to illustration but that's because he has a really bad memory. Much of his career is worth remembering in any case. Most of it has been about a guy getting to absolutely live his dream; making pictures that make stabs at telling the truth in print about things he feels are important. He is still at it, now moving across platforms, believing, with some justification, that we are all content providers and can now see our ideas shape and get shaped by all manner of media. This site is dedicated to that. And above all, to the best of our imperfect faculties, to telling the truth.

Caricature is…

Caricature, which is a subcategory of illustration, is about finding the narrative elements within a portrait and making them clear as tools in making literal and figurative points. When done for publication, it is not merely about making big things bigger and small things smaller. It is storytelling. This involves knowledge about what is under the surface of a face and teasing it to the top. Caricature is not the destination. It is the journey. It's the bike you ride.